


Exercise Vytal

by ShadeOps21



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4708196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeOps21/pseuds/ShadeOps21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sergeant Ruby Rose is newly promoted to team leader of Beacon One-One, one of two squads of an airborne infantry platoon. How will she fair through her first test during the large multinational training exercise, Exercise Vytal?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rose, Ruby: SGT, 421262

_Rose Residence, Patch Island, Off the coast of Vale._  
_Twelve years ago..._

“Ruby! Yang! It’s time!” Taiyang shouted from the front door of their home. Beside him stood a woman wearing a camouflage uniform with the tags of _ROSE-XIAO LONG_ and _VALE ARMY_ sewn to her chest. Taiyang turned towards her and placed an arm around her. “Last tour, right Summer? Then you’re out?”

“Yes, it’s my last tour. Then I’ll get transferred to headquarters and hopefully never get deployed again.” She replied, leaning into Taiyang’s side. “Sure, I’ll miss being around the regiment and the guys, but I’ll be able to spend more time with my girls.” Summer turned and watched as said girls ran down the steps and wrapped their arms around her, one on each side of her.

“You’ll be back soon, like last time right?” The younger girl asked, looking up at her with teary silver eyes. “Promise?”  Summer’s heart couldn’t help but break at the request, knowing full well that she couldn’t promise anything of the sort. She crouched down to be eye level with the girl, and held her in front of her.

“Ruby, I promise that I’ll be back. I’ll even bake you some cookies when I return, okay?” Ruby didn’t reply, but instead just pressed forward to cuddle against her mother once more. Deployments were always like this; no matter how many times that Summer was called away, it never got any easier. The reverse was true, it got harder as Ruby grew up and was able to comprehend where Summer was going and what she was doing.

“Hey Mom, be sure to kick some Grimm ass.” Her eldest ‘daughter’ spoke up, resting a hand on Summer’s shoulder. She looked up at her to tell her to watch her language, but Yang beat her to it. “Sorry, I meant butt. Kick some Grimm butt for us.” Summer smiled; while she wasn’t her mother by blood, she had raised her like her own. Thankfully, Yang was a little more mature whenever it came to Summer’s deployments; she was always the stronger one of the two, though she still cried a little when it was actually time to say goodbye.

“Yang,” Summer said, untangling herself from Ruby to pull Yang into a hug. “Look after your sister for me while I’m gone. And help your father around the house as well.” Yang nodded against Summer’s shoulder, the older woman feeling a small damp patch against her shirt where her daughter’s face rested. A car horn sounded from outside, directing Summer to expedite her departure. She pulled both of her daughters in for one last hug.

“I need you both to be good while I’m gone. I’ll call home whenever I can, and before you know it I’ll be back home for good.” She stood up as the girls moved to grab either side of their father. Summer stepped over to her husband and gave him a kiss and hug goodbye. “I’ll be safe, so don’t worry, alright?” She stepped away and picked up her bags, and walked through the door. As she walked towards the car with her fellow officers, Army Captain Summer Rose-Xiao Long finally let a few tears fall.

_I’ll be safe..._

* * *

 

_Five months later..._

_“... and now to the south east, where coalition peacekeepers are still facing opposition from insurrectionist forces in the state of Menagerie. So far, coalition casualties are on a steady...”_ The report droned on as the two girls sitting opposite of the TV waited for their favourite show to start. A few sharp knocks on the door ruptured the relative silence. Yang stirred from her bored state and looked over to her younger sister.

“Hey Rubes, can you get that?” She asked, stretching out a little before sinking further into the couch. Ruby opened her mouth to protest, but another series of knocks cut her off. Rolling her eyes, she made her way from the couch to open the door. Like the many times she had opened the door and greeted guests before, she opened the door with a bright smile on her face.

“Hi!” The three men on the other side of the door remained silent, causing Ruby’s confidence to falter slightly. It was then when she noticed that the men were all wearing the Army’s ceremonial uniform, one man with small crosses pinned to his collar. Ruby took a few tentative steps back, and turned her head to call for Yang while not taking her eyes off of the men. “Yang?!” She called with an unsteady voice. Seconds after, the sounds of frustrated footsteps could be heard approaching.

“I swear Ruby; just slam the door on them if it’s a sales...” Yang’s sentence trailed off as she saw the three soldiers standing at the doorway. Instantly, she knew something had happened, as three soldiers in ceremonial uniforms standing at the doorway of a soldier’s family could only mean one of a few things. She rested a hand on Ruby’s shoulder, her gaze locked on the soldiers. “Ruby... go get Dad... quickly.” Ruby didn’t hesitate, and quickly ran off to fetch their father. Yang kept her eyes on the soldiers, focusing more on the man towards the rear than the two other soldiers who stood on either side of the doorway. It wasn’t long until Ruby returned with Taiyang in tow.

“Ruby, you need to tell me who’s at the door...” He said, looking up towards the soldiers at the door. Yang could see him visibly freeze, his eyes widening in fear. When they saw him, the two on either side of the door snapped to attention, their arms rising slowly in a salute.

“Mr Taiyang Xiao Long?” The third soldier spoke up quietly, stepping closer to Taiyang. “I’m Major Azure Powers, a chaplain from the 10th Infantry Regiment. I... have some bad news regarding your wife, Captain Summer Rose-Xiao Long. Is there someplace we can talk inside?”

* * *

_Camp Castle in the Nikol Desert, approx 1000km south of Vacuo  
Present day..._

Sergeant Ruby Rose pushed aside the flap to the tent then let it fall back to hang naturally as she stepped in, taking a moment to savour the cooler inside air temperature. While the desert-issue combat uniforms were designed with hot weather conditions in mind, they still made her feel hot under the bright Vacuan sun. She started walking deeper into the eight person tent, navigating around the storage crates stacks along the centre and the other members of her squad that were sparing or maintaining equipment in the walkways. She arrived at her bunk and laid down on it, eager to rest after the lengthy briefing she had attended. Ruby understood the point of the briefings, but she couldn’t understand why Warrant Officer Class 1 Port was the one giving the briefing. The long-term career soldier had a nasty habit of going off tangent during various stages of the briefing, dragging out the process.

“Hey Rubes, any word on movement just yet?” Ruby turned her head to her left to find her squad’s automatic riflewoman, and her older half-sister, sitting on her own bunk, a freshly cleaned Minimi resting on its stock beside her. Sergeant Yang Xiao Long was one of the largest soldiers in Ruby’s squad, and as such was given the responsibility of carrying the light machinegun and its ammunition. Thankfully, given Yang’s uncanny ability to carry more weight than normal, there was need for an assistant to carry ammunition, allowing a member of her squad to fulfil another role.

“No... just another situation report with our favourite Warrant Officer.” Ruby replied deadpan, but a slight smirk crossing her face. “Two-Two took a few casualties during a patrol out west, while a Mistralian armoured platoon wiped out an entire nest of opposition forces that were going to mass an assault on the camp.” Ruby sighed and rubbed her face. “I wonder if any of the other platoons have our issue.”

“And what issue is that?” Yang asked curiously, setting the large gun on the ground beside her as she laid down on her own bunk.

“Well... our briefings are either run by someone who can’t stick to the format, or someone who rushes through the brief and leaves out the finer details.” Ruby was referring to the second senior enlisted soldier that was attached to platoon command, Warrant Officer Class 1 Oobleck, also known as ‘De-Caf’ by the junior soldiers. “I swear, between Port and De-Caf, I’m surprised we manage to survive our missions.”

“That’s because Ozpin actually knows what he’s doing, unlike some of the other platoon commanders I’ve come across.” A black haired soldier said as she approached the two resting sergeants. Corporal Blake Belladonna was one of the quieter members of the team, but was also one of the more lethal members, fitting for someone assigned as the designated sharpshooter on the team. “It’s thanks to him that we get accurate intelligence and proper battle orders.”

“That’s true... still; it’d be good to get through a briefing that’s both concise yet detailed.” Ruby chuckled, looking around the rest of the tent and studying the remaining members of her team. Two of her team were sparing, her assistant team leader and fellow Sergeant Jaune Arc currently being pinned to the ground by radio operator Corporal Pyrrha Nikos. Corporal Weiss Schnee sat at the end of her bunk, the medic in the middle of resupplying her FAST pack with medical equipment. Lance Corporal Nora Valkyrie was going through a crate of forty-millimetre grenades for her underslung launcher, while Lance Corporal Lie Ren sat on his bunk, cleaning and servicing his rifle.

Ruby wondered if her mother ever had a team like this, but dismissed the thought. Her mother was an officer, holding the position of platoon commander in an airborne infantry regiment. Ruby instead chose the enlisted route, rising to the rank of Sergeant fairly quickly, faster than her older sister. She too was in a command position, a team leader of seven soldiers, unlike the thirty that her mother had led for a few years before her death. She was too young to fully understand what had happened to her mother when she died, only being told that she was not coming home and would never will. It wasn’t until she was fifteen when she learned that her mother had died as the result of an insurrectionist vehicle-bomb at a checkpoint her platoon was controlling. Being the kind of officer who led from the front, she was at the gate when the bomb detonated.

As Ruby grew older, she went through her mother’s belongings and keepsakes from her deployments, learning about her exploits all over Remnant through her career. At the age of seventeen, she followed in her older sister’s path and enlisted in the Army. Now, five years later at the age of twenty-two, she had reached Sergeant and was leading seven others into the fight. She was in the same unit as her mother, 2nd Platoon of the 11th Airborne Regiment, and was going to make her mother proud. While the heavy conflict in Menagerie had ended just before Ruby had enlisted, Vale still deployed a small detachment of peacekeepers to the area; Ruby had been deployed for a six month tour with the security forces during her time as a Lance Corporal, and then was transferred to the 11th upon her promotion to Corporal.

Right now, the 11th Airborne were deployed as part of Vale’s contribution to Exercise Vytal, a major multinational training exercise held every three years. Soldiers, sailors and airmen and women from all over Remnant would deploy to a single location and take part in a series of war-games designed to strengthen international ties and practise large-scale combined operations. Each exercise focused on a different scope of warfare; this year’s focus was on manoeuvre warfare and urban operations, as well as multinational cooperation on a squad level. To Ruby, this meant a lot of running around, moving from building to building while working with teams from other nations.

“So, when you do think we’ll get another tasker?” Jaune asked as he was let up by Pyrrha, brushing off the dirt and sand from his uniform as he walked over to the others.

“I don’t know, after Port finished the briefing Wizard spoke up and said something about ‘being on guard’. Knowing him, he’s probably received orders for a scramble and keeping it from us so he can spring it on us during our down time.” Ruby replied, referring to Captain Ozpin by his radio call sign. Taking off her hat and uniform shirt, she then laid back down onto the bed. “I’m just as eager as you are to get into the fight.”


	2. Hearts and Minds

**_Ex Vytal - Day Three, Mission One_ **   
**_Task – Dismounted Patrol, Urban Environment_ **   
**_Objective(s) –Monitor security and maintain public presence_ **

_Vacuan settlement two hours north east of Camp Castle_

_“Beacon One Actual to Beacons. Radio check, over.”_ Ruby listened as Pyrrha responded to the check, and sighed as the team continued their foot patrol down a dusty road. The platoon had been sent to this town to check for opposition activity and provide reassurance to the locals. That was one novel feature of Vytal; civilian populations were actively involved with the exercise, meaning that there was some element of unpredictability to every mission. While most of the time, the civilians stayed out of the way and went through business as normal, sometimes they would come up to the troops and interact with them. A handful of times civilians were used to pose different challenges to the troops, ranging from simple disagreements to posing as potential and actual threats. Though, this was done with higher approval from both the exercise commanders and local authorities.

Still, foot patrols were one of the dullest missions in existence, save for guard duty at a base many kilometres away from the front line. Ruby reminded herself of this as their mission passed the second hour. She surveyed the area and saw a small school up ahead on their right, before taking a look at the state of her team. Each member of their team displayed varying levels of fatigue; everyone except Lance Corporal Valkyrie, who seemed to be never run out of energy regardless of the situation. The amount of equipment and ammunition they had to carry on top of the weight of their armour plated vests took its toll on their bodies under this hot sun.

“Alright team, we’re going to continue up this road until we reach that school. We’ll take a few minutes rest there before we continue on. Any objections?” Ruby noted the silence that followed, and nodded. “Good, let’s keep moving.” In no time at all, the eight soldiers reached the school and took a spot in the far end of the playground, out of the way of any students or staff that might come near during a recess. Currently though, they would be undisturbed as the children were still in class. Ruby sat down on a bench and removed her helmet and radio earpiece, then stowed her rifle by her side. The rest of her team did the same, with Pyrrha and Weiss removing their equipment packs and Yang loosening the fasteners to her plate carrier.

“I hate this Vacuan heat... why couldn’t they have held Vytal in Mistral this time. I heard it’s nice and lovely this time of year.” The medic spoke up as she removed her canteen from her vest. “Hell, maybe even coastal Vale would have been nice. At least there’d be water for us to cool off in.” Ruby had to smile at Weiss’s complaints, silently agreeing with her statements.

“If you wanted comfortable conditions, you should have joined the Air Force.” Yang piped up as she sat herself down beside her sister. “I’d have said Navy, but I doubt that you’d enjoy the confined spaces and cramped living conditions.” Weiss just rolled her eyes at the gunner as she drank from her canteen.

“You know how it is Weiss; we can’t tell where the enemy to fight, we go where they go.” Ruby spoke up, rubbing the build up of sweat from her face with her sleeve. “But it wouldn’t hurt them to take it to someplace cooler. It’s already been three or four days and I’m already over this heat.”

“ _Beacon One-One-Actual, this is Beacon One-Two-Actual. Be advised, we’re shifting two blocks east of your position and taking a relief break before moving on, how copy over?”_ Ruby put her headset back on and keyed the mike to reply.

“Copy that One-Two, One-One is currently taking a relief break at the school. Expected to return on station within ten to fifteen mikes, over.”

 _“Roger, One-Two out.”_ Ruby’s squad was one of two squads in 2 nd Platoon, the second squad being led by Sergeant Coco Adel. The two team leaders had a mutual respect for each other; Coco having served three tours in Menagerie with the peacekeepers, as well as the previous Vytal Exercise that was held in Vale three years ago; Ruby having been promoted to Sergeant and the role of team leader in a very short amount of time when compared to other team leaders.

“I take it that we aren’t the only ones feeling the heat?” Yang asked, having overheard the brief conversation on the radio.

“Yeah, Coco had the same idea as us, probably at a park or something. Hey, how is everyone feeling? You guys keeping up with your water?” Ruby asked openly, seeing a few canteens and hydration pack hoses lifted into view. “Good, I don’t want to be carrying anyone to medical after our first mission.” A bell started to ring in the school, and from their position in the far end of the yard, a large crowd of school children of all ages ran into the yard. Most of them reached halfway before noticing the group of soldiers, and hesitated.

For about two seconds.

Ruby and her team found themselves swamped with kids left and right, each of them asking questions and looking at their gear. Yang hefted up her Minimi and unloaded the belt and bag before laying it on the ground for some kids to look. The rest of the team did the same, except for Ruby and Lance Corporal Lie Ren, the two of them taking up watch to make sure they had some kind of defensive capability. Nora and Jaune were letting some of the children try on their helmets, while Blake and Pyrrha showed others the various scopes and long-range radios, and Weiss was talking with a few of the teachers that had come out to see the spectacle. Ten minutes went by with countless questions answered and stories told.

 _“One-One-Actual, this is One-Two-Actual. We’re going back on station, wondering if you were going on as well, over.”_ Ruby chuckled at Coco’s tone of voice through the radio.

“Two, this is One. We fighting our way through an ambush of curious school children, currently we’re taking suppressive cuteness fire on all sides, over.”

 _“Copy that One. Let us know if you need some reinforcements over there. Two out.”_ Ruby smiled again as she looked over her team. Checking her watch, she decided to call it and get everyone back on the job.

“Alright One-One, pack it up, we’re moving out!” This was met by a chorus of disappointed sighs and moans from the kids as the soldiers started packing up their gear and reloading their weapons. Ruby stood by the gate as her team filed out, turning back to face the kids and wave them goodbye.

* * *

_Camp Castle  
Later that evening..._

“Remind me to thank the Vacuo Department of Defence for providing us with their finest military chefs to staff the mess.” Jaune said as the team made their way back from the mess tent to their tent.

“Yeah, the base chefs back home are pretty good, but when it comes to field kitchens they need a lot of work. If this is what the Vacuan Military feed their troops in the field, I can’t imagine what the base messes are like.” Yang spoke up in agreement.

“I wonder what their ration packs are like. I mean, it only makes sense that quality goes down the further you get away from a fixed establishment. So, given that the field kitchen here is like our base mess, and that their mess is most likely better than that, it stands to reason that their MREs are like our field kitchens: somewhat enjoyable. It beats our MRE packs; they barely pass the rating for ‘edible.’”

“I don’t think the quality of taste and the like really matters,” Ruby started, getting her fellow sergeants attention, “as long as it gives us the energy we need to fight and live another day.”

“Rubes, I think you, Jaune and Nora are the only people in the entire Vale Armed Forces that do not care about things like taste. And that’s including the guys from Omega.” Yang countered, making the sergeant grumble a little. They walked the rest of the way to their tent in silence, Ruby opening up the flap and holding it open for her team. After she entered, she noticed something was wrong with the end.

For one, the storage crates normally found in the centre now rested on top of their bunks. Secondly, the bunks themselves were stripped and flipped upside down. And lastly, a note was pinned against one of the support beams with a piece of duct tape. Ruby moved through the team and retrieved the note, turning to face the group as she began to read the note aloud.

_“Beacon One-One,_

_Good to see a few familiar faces in this forsaken desert. For those that don’t know us..._

_Welcome to Vytal._

_And in Camp Castle, there is no safe Haven.”_

Ruby looked up from the letter to see most of the team looking as confused as she was, except for her gunner and markswoman. Instead, Yang and Blake wore faces of recognition and amusement.

“You two know who this was?” Ruby’s question drew the two in question out of their slight trance, and Yang walked over to read the note for herself.

“Yep, I know exactly who this was. See how ‘haven’ has a capital ‘h’ there? That’s who did this.” Upon seeing Ruby become even more confused, Blake began to elaborate.

“Haven Team, Mistralian Marine Special Warfare Command. They’re a small direct-action and reconnaissance team, comparable to our Army’s Omega Unit. And they’re notorious pranksters when it comes to joint exercises and that kind of thing.”

“Blake and I ran into them when we were on exchange to the Mistralian Marines two years ago. We were attached to an infantry platoon that was supporting them during a training exercise; they hit us with a similar prank, just isolated to the pair of us instead of the entire platoon.” Yang said as she pulled her bunk off the crates and started cleaning up from the prank. “I managed to find their supply cache and retaliate in kind.”

“I doubt setting off a stink bomb where they kept their armour and weapons ‘retaliating in kind’, Yang.” Blake crossed her arms as she looked at the gunner.

“Hey! You play with fire, you get burned!” Ruby shook her head at the antics, and then began working to clear up the mess that Haven Team had made. The tent took roughly half an hour to return back to its original state, the team then beginning to clean their weapons and prepare for the next day’s activities.

“Hey Yang, I take it that you know who exactly did this, right?” Ruby asked her sister as she set down her partially disassembled rifle.

“Well, I know who wrote the note for starters. I don’t know his real name, and I’m not sure if he’s the same rank or position now, but it was a guy with the name of ‘Monkey’. For all I know, he’s probably a team leader or higher by now. I’m surprised he remembers who Blake and I were after all this time.”

“Yeah, that moniker does seem appropriate with the whole prank thing. I hope that he takes his war fighting seriously though.”

“He’s a special operator. I’m pretty sure that’s an indicator of how good he is. And if guys like him can’t blow off steam, who can?” Yang said as she pulled a set of small weights from her footlocker. Ruby knew that once her sister started her reps, there would be no more conversation; mostly because she would listen to music while she lifted.

Ruby took the last few hours until lights out reflecting on the day’s events. Her first major mission went well with no issues, they improved local relations with their impromptu visit to the school, and they fell victim to a prank by a Special Forces team.

It was a pretty good day.


	3. False Flags and Saviours

**_Ex Vytal – Day Six, Mission Three  
Task – Area Defence (OPFOR)  
Objective(s) – Defend against coalition force by any and every means possible until either either force has reached maximum attrition._ **

_Fuel storage area (abandoned) three hours east of Camp Castle_

_“One-Alpha, this is One Bravo. I have visual contact of two victors approaching on the southern MSR, no confirmation on markings, over.”_

_“Break, One-One-Actual, this is One-Two-Actual. My bravo section reports sightings of victors on the northern MSR. No confirmed ID, over.”_

_“One-Two, One-One, copy last. Watch our backs. Break, One-Bravo, copy that; engage at your discretion, we’ve got you covered on this side, out.”_ Ruby was nervous, for obvious reasons. Part of Vytal’s charm was that units were rotated around to play as the ‘enemy’, and sometimes those units would be assigned a mission or task that wouldn’t normally be undertaken by said unit. For example, a single airborne infantry platoon being tasked with defending against an assault by an entire mechanised infantry regiment. Lightly armed soldiers going up against troops with heavy weapons and lightly armoured trucks.

To say that Ruby and Coco’s squads were outmatched would be the beginning of an understatement.

Luckily, as the enemy, both team leaders didn’t have to abide by set military procedure and protocol. As stated in the objectives, the opposing force was to defend using anything and everything they could get. Command saw fit to arm the defenders with more than enough ammunition and light armour rockets, simulated of course. Ruby was surprised at how many types of weapon were able to be simulated using lasers and ballistic computers. After their second mission, Ruby had learned that a dummy fragmentation grenade she had thrown into a window that an enemy gunner was using for cover had ‘blown’ both of his legs off below the knee, the resulting blood loss killing him in mere seconds.

 _“One-Alpha, One Bravo. Positive ID on the victors and papas, I can make out Mistralian and Atlesian flags on their uniforms, as well as Atlesian markings on the vics. They’re well within our range, but they haven’t yet seen us. Engage, over?”_ Ruby pondered over Jaune’s request. She had split her squad into two groups of four, each group watching a quarter of the outer perimeter of the facility. Ruby had kept Pyrrha, Weiss and Blake with her, while Jaune took Yang, Nora and Ren. Coco had mirrored her deployment with her own squad.

Ruby knew everyone on Coco’s team to some degree: Sergeant Fox Alistair, a man with extraordinary eyesight, served as her team’s sharpshooter; Corporals Velvet Scarlatina and Yatsuhashi Daichi were her medic and gunner respectively. Ruby admired them all; they were all combat veterans to a degree, and were there whenever the young sergeant had a question or issue her own team couldn’t answer or help with.

It was the second half of Coco’s team that she wished she didn’t know, having met all of them during basic training. Corporal Cardin Winchester served as Coco’s assistant team leader, out of necessity more than anything else, and was an absolute tool when it came to his attitude. The rest of his section, Lance Corporals Russel Thrush, Dove Bronzewing and Sky Lark weren’t much better, the radioman, grenadier and rifleman all showing varying degrees of contempt and dislike towards Ruby. It didn’t help that Cardin’s father was a sergeant in her mother’s platoon, also killed in the same attack. Cardin seemed to have taken this fact to heart and was cold and unforgiving towards her.

Ruby shook her head to clear her of the thoughts running through her head and focused back onto the task at hand. She looked through her rifle’s optics and could see in the distance the newly arrived Mistralian and Atlesian troopers, by the looks of them they were standard Army as well. Taking a look at the vehicles, she could see that they were nothing more than up-armoured four-wheel drives with a pintle-mounted medium-machine gun in the roof, a soldier sitting behind it with binoculars in his hands.

“Bravo, hold fire until I give the word. Break, One-Two, this is One-One, what’s your contact status, over?” Ruby asked as she lowered her rifle.

_“Two, this is One. We’ve ID’ed the units as Mistralian and Atlesian, about two platoon’s worth on our side, over.”_

“Copy, we’ve got exactly the same over here. I’m going to get my sharpshooters to pick off the heavy threats, then open up on the rest, over.”

 _“That’s a solid plan Rose, I’ll do the same. Good luck over there, Two out.”_ Ruby stifled a chuckle as she moved deeper into the structure she was using for cover; a simple shack with rusted sheet metal walls. If this were a real fight, she’d have taken cover behind solid brick or steel, but lasers can’t account for penetration.

“Blake, I need you to sight up on the vehicle gunners and prepare to take them out. Once they’re down, try and go for any responders. We aren’t going to play by convention rules here.”

 _“I got it Ruby. I’m ready to fire when you give the word.”_ Blake replied through the radio, having taken a vantage point on the top of an empty fuel storage tank that stood as tall as a two-storey house. Ruby up towards the windows of the administration building in the south eastern corner, a flash hider of a barrel just visible in one of the upper level windows. Weiss and Pyrrha had taken refuge in that building and were planning on using the height to their advantage.

“Bravo, you ready to go?” Ruby asked through the radio as she ran over the last checks of her rifle, a G36 fitted with an ACOG, low-light and night-vision laser, and a fore grip.

 _“Ready and waiting. Yang says her trigger finger is itching really bad.”_ Ruby laughed a little, then raised her rifle over her cover and sighted on the closest enemy soldier she could find, about three hundred meters away. With a slow breath, Ruby applied pressure on the trigger.

It’s amazing how much chaos a single gunshot can unleash. In the following seconds, Ruby watched as the soldier she had targeted stop his movement and exclaim something as he lowered his weapon and sat down. The subsequent eruption of gunfire from the rest of the defenders sent the attacking forces into disarray, Ruby spotting the men in the fixed gun positions climbing down to sit inside the vehicle. _Nicely done Blake_.

 _"One-One, this is One-Two. Advising that the victor gunners on our side are down. Attacking force on this side is down to approximately seventy-five perc-"_ Ruby winced as she heard a loud series of beeps through the radio. _"Just took a hit to the right upper arm, I'm out of the fight. Yatsu, sweeping fire on those troops on our right side, they've got marksman! One, keep your eyes out for enemy marksman, over."_

"Got it Two, thanks for the tip, out." Ruby said, bringing her rifle up to fire a burst at a small cluster of men two hundred meters away. "Blake, if you see any enemy marksman, take them out at your discretion." Ruby waited for her markswoman to reply, but after twenty seconds of silence, Ruby tried again. "Blake, did you get my last?" No response. "Blake, radio check!" Still no response. Ruby ran a little closer to the tower while in cover. She couldn't see any movement from up there, and listened to see if Blake was actually firing her weapon. After a minute of silence, Ruby jumped back onto the radio.

"One-Two, this is One-One. I'm not hearing anything from my sharpshooter. Can you get yours to take a look and see what's up, over?"

 _"One-One, copy, wait five, out."_ Ruby waited as she fired a few more bursts toward the enemy, before Coco came back onto the net. _"One-One, hate to say it but your shooter is down, over."_

"Damn... thanks for the assist Two, One out." Ruby ran back to her building and up to where Weiss and Pyrrha were situated. "Hey, Blake's down meaning we've lost precision fire. Make all of your shots count."

"Got it Ruby." Pyrrha replied, taking aim through the window.

 _"One-Bravo to One-Alpha. Yang's hit and out of the fight, but still alive. We're moving her back deeper to the compound. Nora's taking her gun for the rest of the fight. Orders?”_ Jaune sounded a little panicked, but Ruby knew better to worry; Jaune had this unexplainable ability to do well under extreme pressure.

“Try and utilise the light gun to sweep across their lines and cut them down. Send some forty’s out there to thin them out as well, make them scatter from cover.”

 _“Copy that!”_ Jaune’s reply was punctuated by a long burst of machinegun fire, and Ruby watched as three men were caught mid-sprint.

 _“One-Two’s taken a casualty, Corporal Winchester is down!”_ Coco called through her radio, her team’s rifle fire audible in the background. Ruby did the math, and between the sixteen defenders of this facility, four of them had already been made combat ineffective.  _“Lance Corporals Bronzewing and Lark are also out!”_ Six of them were combat ineffective. Ten troops defending against two platoons worth of attackers.

“One-One-Actual to all Beacons; keep up the pressure and do not hold back.” Ruby listened as the platoon answered with increased fire. She watched and counted the number of soldiers that went down on the field, declared wounded or dead. After a solid ten minutes of exchanging fire, Ruby stood up and watched as the remaining attackers pulled back and gathered their ‘dead’, piling into their vehicles and retreating into the distance.

 _“One-One, this is One-Two. Are you seeing this? They’re running!”_ Coco spoke over the radio, her voice showing evidence of her bewilderment.

“I can say I am seeing that, Two. Looks like we gave them one hell of a fight, they must have reached the point where they were no longer effective.” Ruby replied as she stretched her arms out and started walking to the southern entrance to the facility. “I’m calling the mission; it looks like they aren’t coming back.”

_“This is Beacon One Actual to all Beacons. Mission complete, pack up and be prepared to move out in fifteen mikes.”_

* * *

 

_Two hours away from Camp Castle, inbound from exercise area...._

Luck.

That was all Ruby had to say about the mission. She had expected to lose from the beginning, but it was evident early on from the sheer ferocity of the opening salvos of fire that the attackers were going to have a very hard time taking the facility. She hadn’t expected that after an half an hour of exchanging fire, the assaulters would pull back and retreat. In a real fight, they would have returned with fresh troops and overwhelming force, but Ruby also had to factor in the kind of orders the attacking force had been issued. They may have been told to keep collateral down to a minimum, they may not have been provided with on-call close air support, they might have been a recon-in-force element, probing Ruby’s and Coco’s teams to get a feel for what they had in the way of defensive five.

Still, to know that they had caused massive casualties while only losing two troops from both teams combined; that was one hell of a victory. Blake was the first casualty, her ‘casualty monitoring system’ flagging that she had received two penetrating rounds to her helmet that ‘killed’ her instantly. Cardin was the second, having broken from cover to assist his wounded team member Dove. He had received the brunt force of a simulated forty-millimetre grenade round that landed directly beside him during his run. Yang, Jaune, Coco, Dove and Sky all had received flesh wounds through their arms or legs, the result of fairly accurate fire from Atlesian marksman.

Both teams had packed up their equipment and were now travelling back to Castle for the night, with Coco’s vehicles taking the lead. They had been given the use of some unarmoured four-wheel drives with the roof and doors removed, leaving only the windscreen and roll cage behind. Not that Ruby minded much at all; she much preferred the wind in her hair than the stuffy bay of an armoured personnel carrier when it came to land vehicles. To her, nothing beat the feeling of standing at the jump door of a C-130 Hercules for a static line jump.

 _"Beacon One Actual to Beacon One-One, message, over."_ The radio in Ruby's vehicle chirped to life, and Ruby reached for the handset on the dashboard to reply.

"One-One, send it, over."

 _"One-One, we've received an emergency tasking order from a Mistralian special operations unit in our AO. Some of their members have received injuries and are in need of CASEVAC. We're the closest unit with a trained medic and One-Two is unable to divert, so we're giving you the mission. Be advised, this is not an exercise mission. I repeat, this is not an exercise mission. How copy, over?"_ Ruby was a little confused, but saw fit to take on the new task.

"One-Actual, copy all. Ready to receive directions to our new objective, over."

_"One-One, the unit's call sign is ‘Haven’; their last reported location was about ten minutes to our north. They were rehearsing a HALO drop when one of their parachutes failed about twenty meters off the ground, Pararescue was alerted but had no available birds. Haven is operating on Tac Two-Five, make sure you hail them when you get close. How copy, over?"_

"One-One copies all, breaking formation and heading to the new objective.” Ruby signalled for Yang to make the turn and lead their two vehicles to Haven Team. She switched from the vehicle net to the team net and started her impromptu briefing.

“Alright One-One. Change of plan; we’ve been tasked with a non-exercise CASEVAC mission. SOF Team Haven was performing a HALO drop just north of here, but one of the operator’s chutes failed just before he landed. Weiss, I want you to get your first aid kit ready to go as soon as we get there. Blake, grab the collapsible stretcher from our cargo bay and assist Weiss with treatment. The rest of you take up a perimeter around the site, and help out Haven if asked. Understood?” Ruby waited for everyone to respond before she switched to Haven’s radio channel.

“This is Beacon One-One to Haven, broadcasting on Tac Two-Five. How copy, over?”

 _“Beacon One-One, this is Haven. You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice.”_  The man on the other end of the radio sounded relieved to hear from Ruby, and she couldn’t help but smile at that.

“Haven, can you give us an updated status on your injured man?”

_“Copy, I hope your medic is listening in. Our guy is suffering from a clean compound fracture to his left fibula, as well as a suspected fracture in his right ankle and kneecap. He also might be suffering from concussion as he hit his head fairly hard when he landed; his helmet appears to have absorbed most of the impact.”_

“This is One-One’s medic, is the patient conscious?” Weiss asked as she used one hand to retrieve a small neck brace from her pack.

_“He is but he’s lapsing in and out of coherency. He had his bell rung pretty hard after all.”_

“Copy that Haven, we’re almost there. I think we see you now, One-One out.” It only took a few short minutes for Ruby’s team to finally arrive on scene; Weiss leaping out before the jeep had stopped moving. Blake ran around to the back and pulled the stretcher out, following after Weiss to assist. Ruby dismounted with her rifle hanging by its sling and walked over to the three other members of Haven.

“Hey there, you guys must be Haven. Sergeant Ruby Rose, Team One leader, Second of the Eleventh Airborne.” She extended her hand and shook it with the blonde-haired team leader of Haven.

“Chief Petty Officer Sun Wukong, Haven Team, Special Warfare Command of the Mistralian Marines. But you can call me Monkey. I’m glad you guys could help out.” CPO Wukong and the rest of his team were easy to pick as members of a Special Forces unit; the mismatching camouflage patterns and highly customised weapons were fairly dead giveaways. That and the out-of-regulation hair styles that each man wore as well. “I don’t know what happened to cause his pack to fail, it drifted away with the wind after it detached. Sage is lucky that it snapped this close to the ground and not when he popped at five hundred, otherwise you’d be helping with a body recovery instead.”

“Yeah, what’s that saying again, ‘Shit happens?’” Ruby asked, earning a slight laugh from Sun.

“Ain’t that right. Hey, Doc, how’s my boy doing?” Sun called over to Weiss, who was just finishing up with a splint to the injured man’s leg.

“Well, we’ve got him stable for now, but we need to get him to a hospital as soon as humanly possible otherwise we risk irreversible damage to the leg. Ruby, you do think you can get onto Wizard and ask what options we have? I want to avoid taking him with us because it’ll take way too long.”

“Got it... hey Pyrrha, I need comms with the platoon commander!” Ruby called over to the radiowoman, who quickly ran over and set the pack onto the ground. She tuned the pack in and gave a thumbs up to the team leader. “Beacon One Actual, this is One-One-Actual. Interrogative; what is the possibility of scrambling PJ’s to our current location? Patient is Cat Bravo at this time, over.”

 _“One-One, this is One-Actual. Wait five while we contact Castle Keep for verification, out.”_ Ruby shook her head, at which Sun let out a small laugh.

“You gotta hate that. All that ‘hurry up and wait’ bullshit, it really wears thin sometimes.”

“I hear that.” Ruby continued waiting, and only a few minutes had passed when the reply came back.

 _“One-One, PJ’s have been scrambled to your position, ETA to your pos is fifteen to twenty mikes, how copy, over?”_  A collective sigh of relief was let out at the message, and Ruby sent back an equally relieved reply.

”Copy that One-Actual, thanks for putting the call in. One-One out.” Ruby turned to look at Sun. "So, I take it you boys will need a ride home when your friend gets picked up?"


	4. Behind the Scope, Part 1

**_Ex Vytal – Day Eight  
Day two of Beacon Platoon rest period..._ **

_Camp Castle, physical training yard..._

_"It's all me; hold on to my breath, like it's the last one I've got left. From the sidewalk to the stars, I'm never gonna settle!"_

The music blared from Yang's earpieces as she went through her repetitions on the bench, lifting upwards of fifty kilograms. While the weight wasn't anything impressive, it was more than enough to ensure that she'd be able to carry and fire a fully loaded Minimi light machinegun in battle.

Yang had been enjoying Vytal so far; the first few missions were always the easier ones, focusing more on getting personnel into the deployment mindset than on actual war fighting. After the first week, the missions would get longer and more complex, typically lasting upwards of a full day or two and utilising a combination of units. She reflected on the three missions that the platoon had been tasked with so far: the foot patrol in a seemingly friendly town, the vehicle-mounted patrol between two small outposts ahead of a larger supply convoy, and playing the role of the enemy during the assault of a fuel storage area. All fairly simple missions for this kind of exercise.

Seven years in the Army; one tour to Menagerie with the peacekeepers, one previous Exercise Vytal deployment, a year-long exchange with the Mistralian Marines, and currently waiting for acceptance to attend Ranger training. Yang would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous about becoming Commando-qualified. She knew she had the base requirements and recommendations to attend, but once she got there she was on her own. Short of the tier one Omega Unit, Army Commandos were considered some of the best soldiers in the Army. Commandos were given advanced training in all aspects of warfare; everything from infantry tactics and weapon employment, to airborne and seaborne warfare and unconventional warfare disciplines. That was coupled with the chance of being selected to join the 1st or 2nd Commando Regiment.

Being a Commando-qualified soldier posted in a regular unit was alright by Yang, she could put those skills to use within her current posting. But a full-time Commando position was her dream. Sure, it meant that she'd have to leave Ruby and her squad, but it meant a wider range of mission types and more chances to see action. She'd read the stories penned by retired Commando operators and was instantly drawn in by the kinds of odds they would face when dropping into battle. Her goal was to be a Commando by the time she retired, however long that may be.

She just hoped that her family would be okay with it. Yang’s last true family really only consisted of three people: her sister and team leader Ruby, her father Taiyang and her distant uncle Qrow. Yang never met her own mother; having abandoned her and Taiyang shortly after her birth. It was only after her seventh birthday she realised that she looked nothing like her ‘mother’ Summer. When she asked the question, both Summer and her father froze and hesitated in answering.

She learnt that Summer wasn’t her real mother and was told what her real mother had done. From this moment forward, Summer gave even more love and care towards Yang to make up for what her mother had done. Even with her younger sister Ruby in the home, Yang always felt like Summer was her real mom.

When she died overseas, Yang made up her mind and decided to join the Army, if nothing else but to honour Summer’s memory. On many occasions, she had taught Yang the importance for looking out for others. What better way than to server her nation and protect them. Sure, it meant having to leave home and leave her little sister behind, but Summer had to do the same as well. Now, serving with her sister in Summer’s old unit, Yang felt at home.

She had no doubt that Summer would be extremely proud of her. Yang just wondered if her own mother would feel the same.

* * *

 

_Beacon One-One’s quarters..._

_“And if I do what you demand, you’ll let me understand. You’re gonna hold me to your word. And if I sell myself away, I’ll have no debt to pay. I’m gonna get what I deserve!”_

Sergeant Jaune Arc could be considered a model soldier, but if you asked the members of his family you would get remarks that he was a ‘failure’ and a ‘disappointment’. The name ‘Arc’ can be traced back through a long list of decorated military officers, each holding some kind of important status during their time in service. But it was one key word that left Jaune as a disappointment to his family: _Officer._ Jaune had been raised in a military family; his father a retired Admiral assigned to Fleet Training Command; his grandfather was a Wing Commander, responsible for leading one of the bomber squadrons  nearing the end of the Great War; his father before him a Major General in charge of an Army Division at the outbreak of the Great War.

All of these men were officers. Jaune was not; he was a lowly Sergeant, low in the totem pole when compared to men like his ancestors. He was expected to join one of the major military academies, and graduate to an officer rank like all of the male Arcs before him. Yet, he broke tradition and enlisted instead; citing that it’s the men at the very front who risk their lives for the fight that win, not the men in the back that sit in their armchairs giving orders from an armoured bunker in total safety.

It was little surprise that his father did not show up at the ceremony held after he had graduated from Basic. Still, Jaune was determined to prove his father wrong. He didn’t need an officer to succeed; he had the potential and the drive to do extremely well as a grunt. Right now, he could say that he had. Jaune had realised shortly after his first posting at a regular infantry regiment that officers only did so much when it came to actual warfare. Sure, they lead the regiments and the platoons into the fight. But the Non-Commissioned Officers, the NCOs; they were the ones to actually lead the fight.

When he met his first team leader, he was surprised to find that he knew about the Arc name and legacy. But he didn’t give Jaune any preferential treatment; if anything, he worked him harder _because_ of the legacy that he had to follow. And it was for _that_ reason why Jaune had enlisted in the first place. He wanted to _work_ and _work hard_ at what he did, not sit around and push papers. It was only a few years before he had reached the rank of Corporal and was classified as a Junior NCO. He was a leader in a sense, mentoring the younger and less-experienced soldiers that came to his team.

Upon being promoted to Sergeant, he was transferred to the 11th Airborne’s second platoon and was assigned as Assistant Team Leader to Team One. Working with Staff Sergeant Chris Wedge, the team’s previous leader before he was injured and subsequently discharged, Jaune grew to be a powerful yet respected Senior NCO. As an ATL, he was expected to take command of at least half the team if needed, or the full team should the Team Leader be incapacitated during battle. Sergeant Wedge would often give command of the team over to Jaune, allowing the younger man to truly experience what it was like to be a leader.

When Wedge retired, the team had expected Jaune to fill the slot. Instead, a newly promoted Sergeant by the name of Ruby Rose had been rotated in. At first, Jaune was resentful towards the ‘new guy’. But after a few days of working with her, his mindset changed from that of resentment to that of a mentor. Whenever he saw Ruby, he saw himself; a potential leader that needed some guidance. And provide guidance he did. He helped Ruby grow into a very effective team leader, much like SSGT Wedge did with himself. When it was time for Jaune to be rotated to a new platoon to take up a Team Leader role, he turned it down, content with being Ruby’s ATL for as long as he needed.

If only his father could see what kind of a leader he was now.

* * *

 

_Camp medical facility..._

_“You can’t bring me down. Already had my life turned upside down. I ride a downward spiral round and round. But I keep flying, I keep fighting. You won’t ever bring me down.”_

_Schnee._ Ask any person on the street what that name means to them and they’ll invariably mention one of the many companies or organisations that the Schnee family own. Schnee products were used all over the world in many different facets of day-to-day life: Fire-fighters utilised Schnee-designed breathing apparatus whenever they ran into a burning building; Schnee-built scanners detect illicit objects at border checkpoints and ports; the ‘Vale Hunters’ football team wear jerseys embroidered with the Schnee logo and wear Schnee protection at their matches. Schnee was also one of the primary contractors for the Vale Armed Forces; their high-quality armaments and vehicles utilised across all three branches.

But if you asked any member of Beacon One-One, they would always reply with this: “Oh, you’re talking about the Ice Queen.”

Corporal Weiss Schnee was the eldest daughter and child of the current CEO and Owner of Schnee Technologies, one Maxwell Schnee. From an early age, Mr Schnee had provided his daughter Weiss with the best education money could buy, paying for enrolments at various high-level academies around the world: all with the intention of grooming her to take over the company when he would retire. From the way Weiss was going in all of her classes, it could be assumed that she would have no problem taking over when she was at the right age. Look closer however, and then one could see that something was off with Weiss. While she performed well and passed all of her assessments and testing with flying colours, it was clear that she lacked true motivation in what she was doing. It was as if her heart was not in her work.

That changed one after being introduced to a pair of Army Combat Lifesavers, who told her that being one was considered one of the harder jobs in the military. After a few more questions, Weiss asked the inevitable.

“Why is it hard?” The two soldiers shared a look, as if to say ‘Who’s going to tell her?’ The older of the two sat Weiss down and answered.

“It’s hard because it’s one of the few jobs where you can still fail after you give it everything you’ve got. A soldier can still die in your hands even after you’ve treated every wound on his body. When that happens, you always think about what else you could’ve done; even if you know for a fact that there wasn’t anything else you could do. That’s why it’s hard.” The raw emotion in the soldier’s voice was enough to light a spark in Weiss’s heart.

After that enounter, Weiss said something her father and mother that would change her life completely.

“Father, mother... I want to join the Army.”

Six years later, Weiss now served as a Combat Lifesaver with the 11th Airborne. Enlisting did come at a cost though. The entire time leading to her eighteenth birthday, her parents tried their hardest to convince Weiss out of enlisting. They told her the horror stories of warfare, shown her the gruesome images of wounded and dead soldiers after a grizzly fire fight, even going as far as threatening to disown her if she enlisted. None of this swayed her course, and when she came home with her signed enlistment papers and a hopeful smile on her face, she found her belongings packed into suitcases sitting by the front door. Upon asking her parents why they were there in the first place, she was told that while they couldn’t risk their public appearance and disowner her legally, they would do the next best thing and cut ties with her.

Weiss was gutted, to say the least. While she hadn’t shown it very often, she really loved her parents and did thank them for what they did for her while growing up. But this turn of events changed her perception on what her parents were like. In her mind, parents were supposed to be supportive of their children regardless of what they did. Her parents willingly shunned her because of her choice to join up and help other people. She grew cold to her parents as a result, resenting anything that had to do with them at all. Anything except her younger sister Winter though. All throughout basic training and her career in the Army, Weiss kept in touch with Winter in secret: the former writing about her exploits and adventures in training and with her team members, the latter writing about family affairs and other news regarding their parents.

The separation from her parents was still a touchy subject for Weiss, and even alluding to them would cause her attitude to run cold for the rest of the day. Shortly after she had joined the 11th, she received a letter from her sister. Opening it in front of her team out of excitement, she quickly turned cold after reading that it was from her parents. They had discovered the stash of letters Winter kept under her bed, and were appalled to find her still in contact, threatening to do the same they did to her with Winter if Weiss didn’t stop writing. This enraged Weiss to the point where her team members, including then-Corporal Yang Xiao Long, had to physically restrain her from launching a small-scale raid on her home.

After sharing her past with her team and the rest of her platoon, they opted on penning a response to her parents. Weiss was worried about how her parents would react to what they wrote, but her fears were quickly dashed when she received another reply from her sister. She wrote that her parents had backed off and would no longer interfere with their contact.

For the first time in years, Weiss now felt like she was part of a family.


	5. Fast Ropes and Breaching and Hostages, Oh My!

**_Ex Vytal – Day Ten, Mission Four_  
** _**Task – Airborne Assault**_  
 _ **Objective(s) –**_  
 _ **Primary: Assault and seize control of a suspected enemy field headquarters.**_  
 _ **Secondary: If found, mark enemy supply cache for demolition.**_

**_CAUTION – Target is located within dense urban sprawl; watch for civilians._ **

_On board an UH-60M Blackhawk, inbound to a Vacuan settlement two hours south of Camp Castle..._

Ruby’s legs hung through the open door of the helicopter as it sped towards their objective. To their right was another helicopter carrying their sister team, Coco visible through the doors as she gave her own team a set of orders... or told them a joke, Ruby couldn’t tell from this distance.

“Sergeant, we’re almost five minutes away. I suggest you get your team ready.” The crew chief spoke over the intercom, Ruby nodding her acknowledgement as she reached for the coiled up rope beside her. Across on the other side, Jaune did the same as the helicopter pitched up and slowed down. She felt her stomach rise a little as the aircraft dropped altitude and began to hover over the target building.

“Ropes out!” She called, tossing her rope out the door to the rooftop. She waited for a few seconds to make sure the rope held, then gripped onto it with her hands and feet and pushed off the edge. She slid down the rope and landed onto the rooftop, moving away from the rope and dropping to a knee with her rifle up at the ready. Twenty seconds was all it took for the entire team of eight to rope down from the helicopter, and Ruby led them to the doorway at the rooftops edge. Splitting into two groups of four, Ruby signalled for Blake to come forward.

When not serving as a sharpshooter, Blake took on the role of point-woman and breacher. She had swapped her standard weapon, a Mark 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle, for a much smaller MP5N sub-machine gun. She also carried with her a M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun System that was loaded with breaching shot. Letting her SMG hang from its sling, Blake pressed the barrel of the M26 against the lock and waited for Ruby’s signal. Ruby tapped her hand against Blake’s helmet, and she fired three shots into the door’s lock in quick succession. The door swung outward a little and Ruby pried her hand through the gap and opened it the rest of the way. Blake surged forward with her primary weapon up and quickly let off a three-round burst of fire at a man that had turned the corner.

“Movement in twos, clear all rooms and converge on the stairwell.” Ruby said sharply, the sound of her team moving to cover the various hallways of the floor. The target building was a four-level office building, the interior layout fairly straight forward and easy to follow for each floor. Ruby and Weiss started moving from room to room, clearing each room and compartment they came across. Save for the sentry at the roof access door, there hadn’t been any other personnel there. To Ruby, this meant that either they had raided a decoy building with a skeleton guard, or that the rest of the defending force were holed up in the lower floors. She suppressed a groan at the thought; close-quarters fighting had a high potential to turn ugly fast, and almost always lead to high-casualties on both sides by the end of the fight.

The entirety of Ruby’s team had cleared the floor in minutes, converging at the doorway to the stairwell. Once again, Ruby signalled for Blake to move up and prepare for the breach. However, instead of readying the shotgun to blow the lock, she pulled out a stun grenade from her vest and pulled the pins while keeping the spoon firmly in her grasp. Blake nodded to Ruby, who held the unlocked door handle in her hand and ready to open. Ruby nodded three times in return, silently counting down the breach. On the third nod, Ruby turned the handle and pulled the door open slightly towards her, allowing Blake to lob the grenade through the gap and down the stairwell. Ruby shut it quickly and waited a few seconds for the telltale bang of the grenade.

When the grenade detonated, Ruby once again opened the door, this time all the way for Blake to surge forwards and into the stairwell. A short and sharp burst of fire rang out in the confined space, indicating to Ruby and the rest of the team that Blake had engaged another sentry. Sure enough, as Ruby made her way down the stairs, she passed a soldier dressed in Mistralian fatigues with his Mark 16 rifle propped up against the wall. She gave him a sympathetic smile, which he returned with a nod of his head as he unclipped his helmet and shuffled out of the way. Her team stacked against the entrance to the third floor, Jaune and Blake ready to execute another breach.

“Split into squads, we’ll clear the place faster. Bravo will take the third deck while Alpha takes the second, move.” Blake peeled away from the doorway, letting Ren take her place as Blake, Weiss and Yang filtered down the stairs towards the second floor doorway. Pyrrha and Nora stood behind Jaune and Ren respectively, and Ruby stopped next to her assistant team leader for a quick word. “Move hard and fast but don’t be careless, okay?”

“Got it Ruby, let’s go kick some ass.” Jaune said with a confident smile. Ruby tapped his shoulder to say ‘good luck’ and then moved to join her squad. Blake and Yang stood at either side of the doorway; Yang with her Minimi’s stock collapsed all the way in an effort to keep it compact enough for use inside. Weiss stood behind her, looking a little nervous but determined.

“Right, same deal as before Blake. Yang, as soon as that flash goes off, I want you to slice whatever’s there with your Minimi; make sure you peel sideways so we can follow you in.” Yang nodded her head in acknowledgement, shifting her weapon around to make sure it was ready. Ruby tapped the top of Blake’s helmet, signalling for her to start the breach. Blake reached forward for the door handle with one hand with another prepped stun grenade in the other, pulling it open enough for her to throw the grenade in.

**BANG**

Blake violently opened the door, allowing Yang to charge forward and let loose a three-second long burst of fire as she swept her weapon across the space. The fire was deafening, but Weiss, Blake and Ruby moved undeterred as they funnelled onto the second floor, their rifles all sighting on the few troops that hadn’t been caught by Yang’s fire. Wisely, they all dropped their weapons and surrendered; Yang and Weiss covering Ruby and Blake as they secured them and gathered them into a nearby room. The sounds of muffled gunfire could be heard through the ceiling as Jaune’s squad moved above them.

Weiss and Ruby moved further into the floor as Yang and Blake kept guard over their prisoners, clearing the remaining rooms until they reached the last room of their floor. Ruby was about to breach but was stopped by a chirp from her radio.

_“One-Alpha, this is One-Bravo. Third deck secure; no casualties, and we’ve captured five enemy personnel.”_

“Bravo, Alpha. Good job, we’re about to secure the last room on deck two. We’ve got eight enemy personnel under guard. If you are combat effective, I want you to clear the ground deck; take Echo-Four-Lima or Echo-Three-Bravo if you need them.”

_”Copy that Alpha. We’ll transfer our POWs to you and proceed to the ground deck, Bravo out.”_

With their brief chat over, Ruby looked over to Weiss and gestured for her to prepare for a breach. Receiving a nod for confirmation, Ruby readied a stun grenade as Weiss gripped the handle on the door. With another nod, Weiss slowly opened the door, and Ruby was about to throw the grenade through but was halted by a shout from the other side.

“You throw that grenade and the woman dies!” The two soldiers froze and backed a step away from the door.

“Listen up, this is the Vale Army. You have nowhere else to run, and if you execute that civilian we will not hesitate in killing you. I suggest you give yourself up and come out with your hands on your head!” Ruby shouted back, her rifle aimed towards the ajar door. She waited for half a minute before calling out again. “Come out with your hands on your head or we will enter and kill you!” Getting no response, Ruby nodded over to Weiss, who stepped forward and gripped the door. Counting down from three with her hand, Weiss swiftly pulled the door open and stepped aside; Ruby quickly stepping through with her weapon up and aimed towards the owner of the voice.

A lone Mistralian soldier stood towards the back of the room, a woman about Ruby’s age clutched to his side with the soldiers sidearm aimed towards the door. The soldier got a single shot off at the same time Ruby fired a single shot. A loud set of beeps rang out after the gunshots, and both soldiers listened for the wound reports.

_“Wounded: upper left leg, critical.”_

_“Wounded: neck, fatal.”_ Ruby sighed in relief as the Mistralian soldier’s simulation gear reported that he had received a fatal wound from Ruby’s shot. Though, her relief was replaced with frustration at the realisation that she herself had taken a critical wound in battle. Thankfully, Weiss was with her to administer quick treatment had that been a real-world engagement, but it was still poor form for a team leader to get wounded in combat.

Ruby nodded at Weiss, who in turn reached for her radio control.

“This is One-One-Alpha, second deck is clear. One-One-Bravo, status?”

_“This is Bravo, ground deck clear, no casualties but no prisoners.”_

“Copy that Bravo. Echo-Four-Alpha, be advised that you now have command of the team; Echo-Four-Romeo is wounded, how copy?”

_“Copy that. One-One, regroup on the second deck, prepare for MEDVAC and exfiltration. Break, Beacon-One-Actual, this is One-One. Objective secure, requesting MEDVAC on site, how copy?”_

* * *

_Camp Castle, Beacon One-One quarters  
Later that night..._

“... and I’m telling you, I much prefer having the stopping power of my Minimi over the compact size of my sidearm.”

“But it’s much easier to wield a sidearm when moving from room to room!”

“Well, when you get nailed by a guy whose vest stopped my nine-mils, don’t come crying to me!”

Ruby frowned from her bunk as she listened to the heated discussion between Yang and Weiss, and how Weiss commented on the fact that Yang used her LMG in close-quarters.

“Besides, if it weren’t for my sweeping fire after the second deck breach, you would have had to deal with a shitload more of the enemy! It’s because of my gun that we were able to scare those last few guys into surrendering.”

“Yeah, but you still shouldn’t have used it inside!” Ruby couldn’t take it any longer, but she knew better than to interrupt her older sister when she was in the midst of an argument; growing up with her had taught her the hard way. She grabbed her soft cover from behind her and made her way out of the tent and into the relatively cooler night-time air. Ruby started walking through the base, no set destination in her mind, just walking for the sake of walking and clearing her mind.

_Damn it Ruby... you could have died if that was a real mission. Your father and sister have already lost two others that they loved dearly, the last thing you want to do is be the next one... Just because you’re the team leader doesn’t mean that you always have to be the first through the door and into the fight._

**_No... I won’t needlessly put other lives at risk just because I don’t want to risk my own._ **

_That’s not being selfish, that’s being subjective. Many soldiers have died under the command of others, what makes you and your squad so different? Nothing._

**_Wrong... they are my friends, my famil-_ **

_Stop that thought right there. That’s why you can’t send others through the door. You’ve become too attached to your team._

**_And there’s nothing wrong with that. If anything, it keeps morale up and brings the team close._ **

_Until the first man or woman falls, in which case all hell breaks loose and any sense of professionalism goes out the window._

“Something troubling you Sergeant Rose?” An authorative voice snapped Ruby from her internal debate, and she looked up to find her platoon commander, Captain Ozpin, looking at her with a mildly concerned expression. Instinct kicked in and Ruby snapped to attention. Ozpin chuckled at this and raised his hand to wave her down. “Relax Sergeant, no need to get formal with me out here...”

“Sorry sir... I was just... thinking about today’s mission.” Ruby sighed as she relaxed.

“Ah yes, the capture of the suspected enemy headquarters. I read that your team took one casualty during the mission, is that correct?”

“Yes sir... it was me sir.” The silence between the two soldiers was deafening. Ruby was dreading whatever her commander said next.

“It is an unpleasant feeling, to be conflicted in deciding whether sending someone else in place of you would have been the correct action or not.”

“Sir?” Ruby asked, surprised. That was not what she was expecting from him.

“You have to realise sergeant, that while you and I are of different rank and position, the fundamentals of what we do and what we feel are the same. But while you have to choose between one soldier and another, I have to choose between two full teams. And it wounds me to know that one day in the future, I may have to choose between them knowing that they may very well not return.” Ozpin turned and looked over towards the empty desert outside of the boundary wire fencing that ringed around the camp. “It is never easy, and it never will be. Whenever I make a tough call regarding our platoon, I always think back to something one of my instructors during my officer training drilled into me. He told us from day one that we have to be able to discern whether an order would be spending lives, or wasting lives. If lives are lost but the outcome positive, those lives are spent. But if the outcome was negative, then they were wasted.” Ozpin looked back at the young sergeant. “Deciding whether the lives under your command were spent or wasted is only something you can conclude. It is up to you to decide whether your own ‘life’ was spent or wasted in today’s mission.”


	6. A Real Charlie Foxtrot

_Dufonte Pass, Menagerie_

The heavy mix of fog and smoke wafted through the damp plains, Ruby waving a weary arm in front of her so she could gain some sense of visibility of the ground in front of her. Her uniform and plate carrier were stained with a mix of mud and blood, its pockets and pouches completely dry of any form of ammunition for both her rifle and sidearm. She slowly walked across the murky ground, an audible squelch marking each step through what felt like mud.

What she hoped was mud.

The entire pass was deathly silent; the only noises that could be heard were Ruby’s ragged breathing and tired footsteps, and the hissing of smoke grenades that hadn’t fully emptied their cartridges.

“Yang? Pyrrha? Beacon One-One, anyone out there?!” Ruby called out through the haze, receiving the same silence in return. Heavily fatigued, she continued to trudge through the smoke. Until her boot struck a metal object half-buried in the turn. Making sure her empty rifle was slung tightly behind her back; she leant down to see what she stepped on. Ruby rubbed the mud of the object, and froze in recognition.

It was her sister’s Minimi; easy to tell apart from the small flame-shaped engravings that were etched along the belt feed cover. Panicked, Ruby looked up and around to look for her sister.

“Yang! Where are you?” Her ears strained to pick up a noise, a sound, anything to indicate where her sister may be.

“R....Ru...by...” A faint whisper was all Ruby needed, and she honed in on the direction the sound came from. Ten meters away, slumped in a shallow crater left by an IED, was Yang. Her plate carrier was torn apart, the shattered remains of the plate visible. The woodland pattern of her combat shirt was hard to tell apart from the mud and bloodstains, and to Ruby’s utter shock, Yang’s right leg was missing from the middle of her thigh down. Her skin was pale, and it was very clear to Ruby that Yang did not have much time left at all.

“H-hey...” Ruby could all but whisper as she dropped onto her knees beside her wounded sister. “Don’t... d-don’t move, Weiss will fix y-you up...”

“Don’t... lie to me Rubes... please...” Yang’s voice was hoarse, as rough as sandpaper. “Y-you okay?”

“J-just a little worn and shell-shocked... look, we’re going to get out of here together.” Ruby instinctively checked her empty vest for something to use, wanting to give her hands something to do instead of being useless. She ran her hands over Yang’s tattered vest, wincing as Yang hissed with pain as the motion disturbed her wounds. After digging through a large pouch, Ruby found a single smoke grenade. “Yang... I promise, I’m going to get you out of here...” She pulled the pin from the grenade and dropped it off to the side, purple smoke quickly spilling from the canister and billowing into the hazy sky above. “I’ve got to find the others... I’ll be back, okay?”

Yang gave her a weak smile in reply as Ruby shakily stood up from the ground and started to wander around. A few bodies lay face down in another crater a few meters away, Ruby approaching them cautiously with the intent of searching them for equipment to use when she found her team. She had to stifle a scream though, as the two bodies were those of her medic and markswoman, Weiss and Blake. It appeared that Weiss was treating Blake when the explosion killed them, as the medic’s first aid pack was torn to shreds a meter away with its contents strewn across the field. Unable to salvage anything from their corpses, Ruby made her way to another set of bodies ten meters away. The group of four was recognisable by the equipment that they had; they were the second element of Ruby’s team: Pyrrha’s radio pack was shattered and inoperable; Jaune’s rifle lying by his side as his vest bore heavy blood stains; Ren and Nora side by side with multiple wounds caused by shrapnel from a nearby artillery round. They all appeared to have died relatively quickly, which gave Ruby some comfort.

Ruby trudged back to Yang, her efforts fruitless and her mind coming to the realisation that her sister may not survive long enough for help to arrive. She silently hoped that, in the midst of the chaos that was the ambush, someone here had managed to get off a radio message and call for backup.

 _“-vised..........val is twel........ op coloured... oke.... .ight, he.....the way.”_ Static from the radio of a nearby body caught Ruby’s attention, and she frantically dove for the body and began searching for it _._ After a few seconds, she retrieved the small handheld radio from its pouch and held it up.

“This is Beacon One-One-Actual, responding to broadcast! I have multiple wounded in this valley, I need help now! Please say again your last message!”

_“Beacon One-One, this is Watchman Five-One. Good to hear a voice down there. Be advised, estimated time of arrival is now ten minutes, pop coloured smoke to mark your position. Hang tight, help is on the way. What is your status of the AO?”_

“AO is dead! Please, just hurry!” Ruby cried into the radio, both in relief and desperation. She turned back to her sister, who hadn’t moved from her spot in the crater. “You hear that Yang? Help is coming!” She waited for a reply or acknowledgement from her sister, but never received one. “Yang?”

* * *

 ****_Ex Vytal – Day Eleven, Mission Five_  
Task – Mounted Patrol, Urban Area  
Objective – Monitor security and maintain public presence.

_Outside of a Vacuan settlement two hours south of Camp Castle_

_“...need a reason, I don’t need to think about it. I’m going to stand right the fuck here, and take this to my fucking chest!”_

The music from Yang’s MP3 player was just loud enough to be heard over the ambient radio chatter and engine noise of the Beowulf MRAP as it drove over the dusty and sandy landscape. The lack of conversation or stimulating activity in Ruby’s Beowulf allowed her thoughts to wander back to the dream she had the night prior. The mere idea of losing her entire team in that manner scared the young team leader, and she kept thinking about what her platoon commander had said to her after their last mission; more specifically, the point he had made at the end of their discussion

**_“It is up to you to decide whether lives are spent or wasted in the course of action.”_ **

Ruby stole a nervous glance at her sister, who sat beside her in the driver’s seat, her attention focused solely on the road and the area in front of them. She then looked at the rest of her team; Weiss behind her and Blake behind Yang, sitting at the controls for the remote weapon system mounted on the roof. She couldn’t imagine losing them in battle, regardless if she chose to spend or waste their lives.

_“... think you realise; I am going sky high... nothing’s gonna keep my feet on the ground... try and hold me back!”_

“Sergeant Xiao Long, must we listen to this... whatever this is?” The shrill voice of Weiss drew Ruby from her thoughts, and she looked over to see Yang flashing a smirk back to the frustrated medic.

“Sorry _Corporal_ but you’re in my ride. When you’re in my ride, you listen to my tunes.”

“But couldn’t you put on something with a little more... substance?”

“Substance? Please... this guy’s all the substance you need. He’s inspirational, motivational and fucking amazing. What else could you want?”

“Something with less repetition and more class.” Weiss retorted quickly. Ruby shook her head and exchanged a look with Blake, who sat and watched the exchange with a barely noticeable smirk.

“Sorry Princess... if you wanted choice in what you listened to, you should have joined the Air Force.” Weiss just snorted in response and looked over to Ruby.

“Sergeant Rose, could please tell your sister to change this song to something decent?” Ruby just laughed and turned back to look out of the windscreen.

“I would if I could, but even I have no control over what she listens to.” She laughed again when she heard Weiss groan. Truth be told, Yang did have an odd taste when it came to her musical choices. But Ruby had grown up with her, and in turn had grown used to that music. Still, the repetitive lyrics did grow annoying after a while. The song in question ended, and a silent pause rang out through the cabin.

“I bet you that Sergeant Arc doesn’t have to put up with this in his team...”

* * *

“For the last time Lance Corporal; they do not put pancakes in ration packs, nor will they start doing so... so stop trying to write to headquarters about it!”

* * *

“Speaking of Arc... did you notice the eyes that Corporal Nikos is giving him lately?” Blake piped up as she took her eyes off of the sensor display.

“Pyrrha’s had eyes on the ATL ever since Exercise Axfall last year; I bet you it was that time that old PRC-8 shorted out on her, where he pulled her away before she was electrocuted.” Yang added with a smirk. “Ever since he saved her life, she’s had stars in her eyes.”

Weiss held her face with her palm, shaking her head at the discussion. “With all due respect to the Sergeant; he’s quite oblivious for someone with the position of Assistant Team Leader...”

“Sergeant Jaune Arc is one of the more experienced and professional ATLs in the regiment. Sadly, that experience is limited to combat operations and tactical knowhow...” Ruby sighed at the admission. “The day that he opens his eyes to Corporal Nikos’ affections is the day that I get accepted as the new commander of Omega.” The rest of the girls laughed at the truth in the statement, though Yang’s laughter wasn’t as boisterous as it normally was.

“Hey, did you hear that Omega raided and captured an entire cell of White Fang in Menagerie a few days ago? The complex they assaulted was filled with more than enough munitions and IEDs to severely hamper the peacekeepers there.” Blake spoke up after they settled down.

“No shit... I wish that we could just go over there and steamroll those pricks into oblivion...” Yang grunted, the memory of hearing that her adoptive mother had been killed by the terror group replaying in her mind.

“You know that the Unified Council shoots down any hint of an offensive campaign in Menagerie. Hell, it was a stretch to get the UC to approve the deployment of a security force for peacekeeping. And we all know how that’s working out...” Weiss said dismissively, before realising what she had said. “I apologise Sergean-”

“Save it Corporal... we know you didn’t mean anything by it.” Ruby cut Weiss off, looking over at Yang worriedly. “I share the sentiment though... I wish we could just go over there and do some good for once...” A sharp series of loud tones from the radio broke the sullen mood, and sent the four soldiers into a mild state of panic. They all recognised the tones used for an Urgent Action Message.

_“This is Checkmate to all Exercise Vytal participants. Effective immediately, all exercise missions are cancelled and all deployed assets are ordered to return to Camp Castle or the nearest forward operations outpost as soon as possible. I say again; all missions are cancelled and all deployed assets are to return to Camp Castle or the nearest forward operations outpost. Checkmate out.”_

Alarm bells started to ring loudly in Ruby’s mind as Yang turned the heavy armoured vehicle around on the dirt road. Through the glass, she could see the remaining vehicles of their platoon’s convoy following suit, large clouds of dirt and dust kicked up in their wake. With a worried expression Ruby looked over at her sister, who face was a mask of determination and fear and whose hands were going white as she gripped the steering wheel tightly.

 _“One-Alpha, this is One-Bravo... I wasn’t hearing things when that message came through, was I...”_ Jaune’s message was more a statement than a question, furthering Ruby’s worry. Not once in their respective careers had they ever taken part in a Force Recall, rehearsed or live.

“That’s a negative Bravo... we all heard it...”

_“This is Beacon One Actual to all Beacons. As you may have heard, we are being recalled back to Camp Castle. At this time, we are unaware of the reason why, but we will advise you as soon as we do. Your instructions upon return to Castle are to proceed directly to our designated living area and enact your pre-deployment routine; disconnect and pack away your MILES gear and switch out to live ammunition for your weapons. I also want to remind all of you to remain calm throughout this recall; I do not want to spread unnecessary alarm during this process. One Actual out.”_

* * *

_Three days later...  
Aboard a C-17A Globemaster... 1500ft above LZ Prophet, Menagerie_

“Hook up!” The loadmaster had to scream over the sound of rushing air as the cargo ramp opened, and two lines of eight soldiers stood up and clipped on to a set of cables above their heads on either side of the bay. A number of pallets with ATVs strapped to them sat on rollers in the middle of the bay, each pallet carrying two of the small vehicles.

“Check rigs!” The soldiers patted each other’s parachutes and harnesses down, making a final visual inspection of the various clips and straps that were fastened to their bodies, before holding a thumbs up out for the loadmaster to see. A pair of crewmen ran checks on the parachutes fitted to the pallets at the same time, and started unclipping the fasteners that held them to the floor.

“Sound off!” Each soldier shouted back a number, until the last soldier sounded out. With everyone who was jumping accounted for, the loadmaster spoke into his headset to the flight crew, and a red light illuminated the back end of the bay.

“Prepare for jump!” The soldiers started shuffling towards their designated jump door, located just before the ramp on each side of the bay. A crew member stood at each door, ready to assist the soldiers through the exit and out into the sky. There was a pause as the soldiers at the start of each line, Sergeants Ruby Rose and Coco Adel, looked at each other across the bay and nodded, ready to jump out and into the battlefield below. When the light turned green, the two simply stepped forward and into the sky with arms crossed on their chests.

* * *

_Ten minutes later..._

“This is Beacon One-One, all pax secured, egress from LZ Prophet to Waypoint Alpha, how copy.”

_“This is One-Two, copy last. All pax are secured here, we’re ingress to Waypoint Zulu.”_

_“One-One, One-Two, this is One-Actual. Report back in when you’ve reached your initial points. Maintain EMCOM until then, Actual out.”_ Pyrrha shut the radio off before securing it to the back of the ATV, while Ruby and Jaune moved to fold up the small map resting on the front of another ATV. The two sergeants had planned their route from the LZ to their target; a small unpaved airfield that looked abandoned but serviceable. The end goal was to secure that airfield to use as a Forward Arming and Refuelling Point, or FARP, for Valeian and allied vehicles.

“This is what I’m talking about; small-unit hit-and-run tactics to deny the enemy.” Yang said as she mounted her ATV, Blake slinging her rifle around her back and climbing on behind her. “I could kiss whoever gave us the ATVs to use.”

“You want to kiss Captain Ozpin?” Weiss piped in, making Yang sputter in shock as she put two and two together. The other soldiers started laughing at the remark, Weiss sporting a smug smirk as she looked over to Yang.

“... that’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, sure...” Ruby said with a smirk as she started her ATV and pulled up her deep red shemagh to protect her face from kicked up dirt and dust, the others doing the same as they quickly set off towards their objective. The four ATVs drove in a loose right echelon formation, Jaune’s ATV taking the lead as the team crossed hills and small streams along their route, careful to avoid paved roads in order to stay inconspicuous.

 Menagerie, even though was considered a place of lower living standards and was for all intents and purposes a second-world nation, had a stable and reliable infrastructure of roads, bridges and other logistical hotspots. Major cities and towns were comparable to the smaller cities of Atlas and Vale, but after a thirty minute drive the land was fairly remote save for small villages and farmland. That said, the terrain wasn’t sparse and flat like southern Vacuo; Menagerie was known for its dense forests and rolling hills. The terrain was exploited to its fullest during the initial outbreak of war all those years ago; White Fang insurgents would use the hills, tree lines and gulleys as staging points for ambushes and caches. Coalition forces were essentially forced to fight blind and with restricted RoEs given how elusive the threat was.

Ruby, during her time between deployments and training, had read up on the accounts of the various operations that took place here, ranging from the initial deployment in Operation CROSS FILE to the peacekeeping deployment known as Task Force Horizon. Ruby had known that her time would come to be rotated through TF Horizon, but never had she guessed that her first time would be an active combat deployment. The current coalition deployment right now effectively doubled that of CROSS FILE and also drew in elements from TF Horizon, which was simply mind-boggling to the young sergeant.

“Rose, we’re at our initial point.” Jaune spoke quietly over the radio, slowing his ATV down to a quiet crawl as they neared a thick treeline that surrounded the airfield that was the target. Ruby  raised her hand to call for a halt, and the four ATVs stopped at the edge of the trees. She climbed off and stretched her legs, taking a cursory look at their surroundings as she worked out a battle plan.

“Lie, I want you here on the IP as security for our victors. Belladonna, Arc; you’ve got our backs. Valkryie; on point. Everyone else is with me. Weapons tight, five meter spread as we move through the trees.” A round of confirmations sounded out as each soldier readied their weapons and took up positions in a loose and random formation, the young red-headed grenadier taking the lead with her rifle low but ready to use. The group of soldiers progressed deeper and deeper through the trees, pausing occasionally to check for any signs of sentries or other anti-personnel countermeasures. The brief had stated that it looked abandoned, but it was better to be cautious than careless.

After seven minutes of walking, the soldiers all crept to the edge of the clearing, a small but functional airfield filling the space. From their position, they could see a few single-propeller aircraft parked in the open hangers, and men wearing the distinct white and red-striped bandanas of the White Fang.

“Well, I owe you ten lien P-Ray...” Yang mumbled as she peered through her machine-gun optics, counting a group of men carrying crates from an aircraft to the side of a hangar. “They certainly put the ‘intelligence’ in ‘military intelligence’.”

“Stow it Sergeant... when the UAVs flew over to get us telemetry, this place may very well have been empty. Who knows how long they’ve been here.” Ruby said as her sister went quiet. “Blake, can you see any markings on those crates?” Blake looked through her high-power scope on her Mk 14 and studied the crates in question.

“‘Mustang Arms, Mark Eighteen Block Zero, Five-Five-Six.’” She read out, the others gaping in shock as they looked over towards the airfield.

“Aren’t Mark Eighteen’s the same carbines that Omega use?” Jaune asked worriedly, his concern justified. “How the hell did these guys get them? I don’t recall Mustang having a branch down here, nor did they report any thefts or stock-loss.”

“I have no clue... but I guess that’s our job to find out.” Ruby said as she sat up slightly, lowering her rifle and rubbing her face. “Gather round, our mission has changed.”


	7. No Plan Survives First Contact

****_Operation Vital Resolve – Day 3, Mission 1  
Task – Assault and Secure   
Objective – ~~Secure abandoned airfield for use as a FARP~~ Assault enemy-controlled airfield and secure for use as a FARP._

_“One-Alpha-Two in position, ready to engage.”_

_“One-Bravo-One is set, on your go.”_

_“One-Bravo-Two is ready to rock.”_

_“Two-Alpha and Two Bravo, waiting for your green light.”_

Ruby listened to the multiple messages over her radio, calming herself for the mission ahead. When it came to light that the airfield was inhabited and active, she had wasted no time in calling Sergeant Adel and her squad for backup. The kind of assault she was planning required the numbers.

All sixteen soldiers split up into pairs, all mounted on their ATVs and positioned around the key areas of the airfield; the hangar, tower and aircraft apron. At the go order, everyone would fire up their ATVs and proceed onto the airfield at high speed. The ATVs carrying Yang and Yatsuhashi, the two Automatic Riflemen, would seize a covering position across from the hangars and set up to provide heavy cover fire. Nora, Ren, Coco and Fox would seize the tower and have Fox set up as marksman while everyone else would assault the hangars and remaining buildings.

The best case scenario: the violence of action and element of surprise would leave the defenders confused and disoriented, resulting in minimal casualties overall.

Worst case scenario: everyone would get mowed down upon approach by hostile fire.

It was a risky move, and a move more commonly used by entire mechanised battalions and Special Forces teams; not a single lightly armed airborne infantry platoon. But inside, Ruby was confident that her plan would work.

“One-Alpha to all teams; green light. Push, push, push!” Weiss, along with all the other ATV drivers, fired up their engines and pinned the throttles, leaving the tree line behind them as they approached the target. Ruby had her G36 rifle shouldered and ready to fire as they drove closer. Through her optics, she could see that the White Fang personnel had not yet reacted to the approach. It wasn’t until a burst of fire rang out from Yang, riding on the back of Blake’s ATV, alerted them to their presence.

Not that it mattered much; by the time the enemy was able to properly react, the soldiers had dismounted from their ATVs and quickly dispatched the insurgents that had their weapons ready to fire. The sheer violence of action had scared the others into surrender; Ruby and Coco watching as the members of their teams effortlessly subdued and restrained the surrendered insurgents.

Ruby looked over to Coco, and saw that the older sergeant was wearing her airborne beret instead of her helmet. Coco noticed this and flashed a ‘why not’ smirk in return while shrugging her shoulders.

“Hey, Sergeant Rose! I think you might want to check this out!” Jaune called out from one of the hangars, the thin metal walls making his voice echo slightly. Ruby wandered over with Coco in tow as they found Jaune and Pyrrha watching over a familiar looking insurgent.

“Coco, do you have a card deck on you?” Ruby asked her fellow team leader, who started digging through her vest for a card deck that had high-ranking members of the White Fang printed on them. She pulled the deck out and started flicking through the deck until they came across a possible match. Coco handed the card to Ruby, who held it up beside the face of their prisoner and verified their identity.

“Who’d know that the Jack of Spades would be in such a remote place?” Jaune chucked as he stated the absurdity of the situation.

“Go ahead and laugh it up, kid. You’ll be regretting it in the next few minutes.” The prisoner responded with a cocky smirk, despite being on his back on the cold and dusty hangar floor with his hands and feet cuffed. Ruby put the card away and stepped up to the man.

“Care to enlighten us why that would be the case?” As if on cue, a radio pack on a table nearby clicked on and a distorted voice came through.

“Candlelight, you’re late for check in. You have ten seconds to respond, challenge Rhino.” The prisoner glanced over to the radio, and then back to the soldiers standing above him.

“That’s why.” He said with a smug smile, apparently satisified with the turn of events. Jaune paled as the realisation of the message sunk in.

“Ruby, that’s a radio check. If they don’t respond, odds are that a reaction force will be breathing down our necks in the next ten minutes. What do you want us to do?” Ruby didn’t respond as she started walking towards the hangar doors, looking around and taking in the surroundings. As she walked into the open area of the apron, she looked up to where Fox and Blake had set up a wide field of cover with their marksman rifles, and then over to where Yang and Yatsuhashi had established a machinegun nest.

“Long; switch with Alistair and set up in the tower with Belladonna. Daichi; see if you can’t get onto the roof of one of these other buildings with Alistair and set up a second overwatch position.” She called out onto the radio, watching as the soldiers quickly carried out their instructions. “Winchester; get your squad and work on bringing the ATVs into one of the hangars as fast as you can. Everyone else; gather the prisoners into the other hangar and then establish defensive positions across the airfield.”

Everyone went to work as Jaune and Coco walked up to Ruby, confused and puzzled looks on their faces. “So, Ruby... what’s the plan?”

“We hold the line as best we can and wait for a miracle...” Ruby looked around for a particular soldier, and called out to her. “Nikos! Get a hold of Beacon Actual and see if you can’t get some air cover or a QRF deployed to our position. We’re going to need some help very soon!”

“Got it Sergeant!” Pyrrha finished running over to her cover of choosing, a parked tow tractor, and unpacked her radio to begin her transmission. “Beacon Actual, this is One-One. We’ve secured the objective at this time, but have intelligence regarding an enemy reaction force has scrambled and is inbound on our position within the next ten mikes. Requesting for immediate reinforcements or air cover, how copy?”

 _“One-One, this is Actual. We copy all; stand by as we pass it up the chain. Wait one, over.”_ That minute felt like ages to Pyrrha, but she did all she could to contain her relief when the reply came back. _“One-One, be advised; Sonic Five, a flight of two Thunderbolt Two’s, has been diverted to your location. Time on station is expected to be within the next seven mikes. How copy?”_

“One-One copies all, out!” She stowed the radio handset and switched to her personal radio. “Ruby, we’ve got two A-10s diverted to us, they should be here in seven mikes.”

Where she stood, Ruby could see the morale of the two combined teams lift dramatically as the announcement was made. The A-10C Thunderbolt II, or Hog as it was called by ground crews and troops, was a massive force-multiplier and a major morale booster as well. While the Hog could carry the latest in guided ordinance, its main feature was its ugly and terrifying thirty-millimetre gun that protruded from its nose. The sound of that gun firing for just a couple of seconds is enough to make friendly hearts pump with adrenaline and the enemy’s heart to sink to their feet.

“Awesome, get yourself into cover now Pyrrha. I anticipate company arriving soon!”

* * *

Michael Thorne was not having a good day.

He started the day with the news that the Vale-led military coalition had pushed further inland and had resecured their main forward base, wiping out numerous White Fang fighters in the process. Then he learned that one of the top ‘colonels’ would be dropping by at a nearby airfield and would be making a surprise visit to local militia cells in the vicinity. After that, word came in that the airfield where the colonel was located had failed to check in, and that Thorne’s Quick Reaction Force was tasked to investigate. And worst of all: he didn’t get to have his morning coffee after an overflying attack jet made him spill all of it onto his lap.

Thorn reflected on this as his convoy of six armed technicals, each carrying five insurgents each and armed with a heavy machinegun on the roll bar, barrelled through the dirt roads towards the airfield. A beanie covered the top of his head, concealing a pair of small wolf ears and protecting them from the dust and dirt being kicked up around them.

“Yo, Thornie! You sure something’s wrong over at the field? Kite might have just fallen asleep at the radio again, like he did last week!” The shout drew Thorne from his thoughts, and he turned to respond to his companion who was crouching in the tray of the technical. Unlike Thorne, who’s features were limited only to his ears and teeth, this man’s standout features were a long striped tail of a tiger and dark-amber cat eyes. The man, Steven Card, had been in the Fang for as long as Thorne had; the two were battle-buddies of a sort.

“Nah, usually Kite responds after the third hail. We got nothing this time. Something’s up, which is why the boss sent us. The fact that they’ve gone dark with the bossman visiting makes this all the more suspicious.”

“Still, there’s got to be a reason why-” Card was quickly silenced as his body crumpled to the hard metal tray, a neat bullet hole in the middle of his face where his nose used to be.

* * *

“Lead gunner disabled.” Blake radioed as she shifted her sights to the gunner in the second truck. She had fitted a suppressor to her Mk 14, both to limit the visible flash and audible report of her gunfire. Though, after the first few shots, the element of surprise would no longer be available. She quickly dispatched the second and third gunners with a single round each, hitting them in the neck and upper chest respectively. While not as lethal as her headshot from earlier, it was enough to keep them down and out of the fight.

_“Good shooting Blake. All Beacons, you are cleared to engage at your own will.”_

* * *

Thorne instinctively dove below the dashboard as Card’s body came to rest in the tray. Within seconds, the vehicle he was in started taking heavy amounts of small arms fire from the direction of the airfield. He couldn’t see who or what was shooting at them exactly, but it was a safe bet to assume that they were Coalition forces.

The truck veered to the side and into a small embankment by the side of the road, the driver slumped over the wheel with bullet wounds visible along the top of his chest. Thorne gathered his wits and quickly climbed out of the truck and hit the dirt in front of him, crawling away and watching his fellow fighters did the same. Amongst the gunfire coming from the field, Thorne could place the distinct rattle of light machineguns amongst the shorter and sharper bursts of rifle and carbine fire.

“Alright, on the count of three, I want half of you to leap up and get to the other side of the road and into those trees. The rest of you provide cover fire.” He listened for his fighters to reply and waited for them to get ready, bringing up his own rifle and preparing it to fire at the enemy.

* * *

“Enemy has taken cover in minor defilade on the road side. All technical gunners are confirmed down.”

_“Copy. Valkryie, Bronzewing; see if you can’t lob some forties over their heads and keep them down. Pyrrha; see if you can’t get a hold of those Hogs and get them to light those guys up!”_

* * *

 

Thorne, along with twelve other men, poked their heads up from the ground with their rifles and unleashed a long burst of automatic weapons fire in the direction of the airfield, not really caring where their rounds hit; as long as it kept those human soldiers suppressed enough to keep them from shooting back.

No sooner had he emptied his magazine, a fighter from the group that ran across called out that they were ready to cover the rest of them to cross. Thorne reloaded and mentally prepared himself to leap up when he could hear a low droning sound in the distance.

* * *

 

_“Sergeant, Sonic is on station and is on their first run. They can see the muzzle flash on their targeting pods and are about to fire. Time to impact, twenty seconds!”_

* * *

 

The droning turned into a low roar, and Thorne’s blood ran cold when he recognised the sound approaching them. He turned to his men and screamed.

“HOG!”

* * *

_“Sonic Two-One, rolling in on vector one-five-seven, weapons hot. Guns guns guns.”_

* * *

 

All that Ruby could hear in the immediate area was the sound of thirty-millimetre rounds impacting on the insurgent fighters on the road across from the airfield, followed by the trademark ‘BZZZRRRRRRRRTTTTTTT’ sound of the A-10C’s GAU-8 Avenger. The men in Coco’s second element; Cardin, Dove, Sky and Russel, they all cheered out in joy as the attack jet rained down sweet death from above, the dust and dirt kicked up from the impact of the rounds starting to settle as the jets passed overhead.

She took a sneak peak at their prisoner, whose smug grin was turned into an ashen expression of sadness as the reality of the scenario sunk in.

“Looks like you won’t be getting away after all...” She said as she stood up and peered through her binoculars to give a battle-damage assessment. The row of technicals that were abandoned were now on fire and shredded to pieces, bodies strewn across the surrounding area while the few that survived writhed around in pain. Internally, she debated sending over Weiss and Velvet to go tend to them, but instead chose against it as any efforts to treat them would end up being futile, as well as put the two combat lifesavers at risk.

Pyrrha came running up to Ruby with her radio pack unslung, setting it down on the ground in front of her as the radio came to life.

 _“Sonic Two-One to Beacon-One-One Actual. Be advised that we will be remaining on station until your ride home arrives.”_ Ruby picked up the handset and replied to the two aircraft that were orbiting them.

“Copy that Sonic, thanks for the assist. One-One out.” With that, she changed frequency back to the battalion’s net.

“One-One to One-Actual. We’ve secured the airfield and are awaiting reinforcements. How copy, over?”

_“One-One, this is Actual. We copy all; combat engineers and three mechanised rifle platoons are on their way to assist, ETA fifteen minutes. A flight of Chinooks will arrive shortly after to collect you and bring you back for debrief, over.”_

“Copy that Actual. Uh, it’s also worth knowing that we have captured the Jack of Spades... how do you want us to proceed, over?” The radio stayed silent for longer than expected, and Ruby began to worry that she had said something wrong.

_“Are you sure that it is the Jack of Spades?”_

“One hundred percent sure, Actual... he’s not cooperating but he’s not resisting, either... What do you want us to do?”

_“Beacon One Echo-Four-Romeo... ensure that your EPW is secure and ready for transport before extraction arrives. Good work out there, One-Actual out.”_

Ruby absentmindedly returned the handset to Pyrrha as she pondered over the instructions given to her by Captain Ozpin. Sure, it was standard procedure to secure a POW for transport, but the way he said it; flat and unemotional, was unnerving.

“Arc, can you and Valkryie make sure that our guest is ready to fly with us?” Ruby asked her ATL.

“Can do... are you alright Ruby?” Jaune replied, concern laced in his voice.

“... I don’t know... I get the feeling something’s about to go down, I just don’t know what.”

* * *

_Forty minutes later... Coalition Operations Base ‘Flèche’_

The mood of the entire platoon lifted as they disembarked the large CH-47 Chinook helicopters that had carried them and their ATVs back to the base. Many of the remarks made by her soldiers were those of relief and elation; most of which could be summed up as Sergeant Xiao Long’s loud remark of ‘home, sweet fucking home’.

And while noticing that Captain Ozpin and the rest of the platoon command element were standby by the entrance of the helipad waiting for them wasn’t exactly surprising, it was the fact that they were accompanied by General Ironwood that caught Ruby off guard. General James Ironwood was the Chief of Army for the Atlas Military Forces and was the current theatre commander for Operation Vital Resolve. With the General were a couple of other soldiers, notably a young looking Lieutenant around Ruby’s age whose ginger hair stood out against the drab grey-green hexagonal camouflage uniform that she wore. On her shoulder bore the patch of the AMF’s field intelligence unit, known only as ‘The Codex’.

Immediately after Ruby helped their EPW off the helicopter, Ironwood and the Codex operative quickly walked up to them and took custody of him, whisking him away to a vehicle with a bag over his head.

“Good work on your mission, Sergeant Rose. I shall ensure that the platoon receives some rest after such a task, you and your team definitely need it.” Captain Ozpin as he approached Ruby with Lieutenant Goodwitch in tow. “Once we receive the intelligence gained from your capture, you can expect the operational tempo to increase dramatically. So rest; you've earned it.”

“Will do sir.”

* * *

“Thank you Captain!” Yang said as she collapsed down onto her bunk; her weapon and vest discarded on the floor at the end of the bunk. “Hey Ruby, I think we kicked some ass today!”

“Go to sleep Yang, you're tired.” Was all that Ruby had to say in return as she walked past and over to her bunk, taking off her plate carrier and setting it down on the floor before sitting down on the edge of the bunk. Jaune walked over and sat beside her, patting her on the back.

“Good work out there, I don't think I could have done it any better myself.”

“Thanks Jaune... I'm glad you're my ATL, I don't think I could have anyone else as my second.” Ruby smiled, before yawning as the day's events caught up to them.

“No problem. I'm looking forward to the few days of rest we'll have before we jump again… we are jumping again, right?” Jaune asked, standing from the bunk as he began to make his way to his own bunk.

“Well, we are an airborne unit… so it’s likely that we’ll be jumping again. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised if we find ourselves taking on a different role soon; either as an air-mobile unit or a motorised unit. We have to be flexible in the theatre of war. Years ago when war broke out here, my Mom was in this regiment… and she spent most of her time leading her platoon around either on foot or in gun trucks like the Beowulf.”

“Right, right… wasn’t Captain Ozpin a platoon commander as well back then?”

“Yeah… he was leading the platoon meant to relieve my Mom’s platoon before they got hit at the checkpoint… another half an hour and she might have ended up where the Captain is right now…” Ruby sighed as she let herself fall back onto the thin mattress and sleeping bag that was her bed, faint memories of her conversations with her commander about her mother after being assigned to the regiment now starting to fill her mind.

“Hey, for what it’s worth, Ruby…” Jaune spoke up, bringing her back to the real world, “from the stories I’ve heard from past members of the regiment, you mother was one hell of a commander. I have no doubt that you’ll be just as good as her.”

“Thanks, Jaune…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE STORY IS STILL ALIVE, YAY!
> 
> Sorry about the massive delay in chapters guys. A lot of stuff has happened since the last update: Semester finals for the year, upgrade of a computer, got a new job that is (practically) full time, and been catching up on Xbox and PC gaming (Got a One for Xmas, and a new gaming PC for my birthday.)
> 
> I'll try to find time to work on this story when I can guys, but don't expect updates too regularly.
> 
> Until next time!


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